ARTICLES USED AS FOOD. 179 



disagreeable taste. Horses do not like them. After the first 

 day or two they begin to refuse them. That which they eat 

 produces diabetes, a disease which goes under various names, 

 the most common are staling evil and jaw-piss. I do not 

 know how the oats obtain this diuretic property : many, as I 

 have said, attribute it to kiln-drying, many to the oats having 

 been heated, undergone a little fermentation in the stack or in 

 the granary, and a few ascribe it to the oats being ill- 

 harvested, musty, or half-rotten, before they are got off the 

 field. Oats may be frost-bitten, damaged by insects, or in- 

 jured in various other ways, but it seems yet uncertain what 

 condition they are in when they produce diabetes ; or what 

 makes them so strongly diuretic. There is no doubt but 

 heated oats will produce diabetes ; but whether any other 

 alteration in the oat will have the same eflect I do not know. 

 Whatever be the cause, the oats must be changed as soon as 

 it is discovered that they produce 



Diabetes. — It is the same disease as that which arises from 

 the use of mowburnt hay. The horses urinate often ; the urine 

 is quite colorless, and it is discharged in immense quantities. 

 The horse would drink for ever, and the water is hardly down 

 his throat till it is thrown among his feet in the form of urine. 

 In a day or two his coat stares, he refuses to feed, loses 

 flesh, and becomes excessively weak. He may for a time 

 continue at work ; but if he catch cold, and remain at work 

 while he has both the cold and the diabetes upon him, he 

 often becomes glandered. 



The horses may not all be alike. In a large stud some are 

 always more affected by these bad oats than others. The 

 worst must go out of work for a while, and some others must 

 be spared as much as possible, while a few may continue at 

 their usual employment. The oats must be changed. Give 

 plenty of beans, some barley, and good hay. Let each horse 

 have a lump of rock-salt, and a piece of chalk in his manger. 

 Put some clay and bean-meal in the water. Carrots, whins, 

 or grass, may be given with benefit. But by changing the 

 oats, and diminishing the work, the disease will generally 

 disappear. If all these means fail, medicine must be tried. 

 A veterinarian will furnish that of the proper kind. But 

 nothing will arrest the disease permanently unless the oats be 

 changed. If not very bad, they do for horses in easy work. 

 But while a horse has diabetes, he can not maintain his con- 

 dition for full work. He would lose flesh though he stood up 

 to the knees in grain. 



